


Coda (you're an open book with the ending still unwritten)

by cyanspark



Category: Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Identity Issues, M/M, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-18
Updated: 2014-07-18
Packaged: 2018-02-09 08:44:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1976526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyanspark/pseuds/cyanspark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you’ve been ripped open, torn apart, and unmade, it’s not easy to put yourself back together. On his best days, being human is a work-in-progress. But he's still trying.</p><p>The epilogue to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1813882">"Look into my eyes and tell me if I'm real."</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Coda (you're an open book with the ending still unwritten)

**Author's Note:**

> This is an epilogue and probably won't make much sense if you haven't read ["Look into my eyes and tell me if I'm real"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1813882) first.
> 
> I thought this might make up for the heartbreak, but I don't even know anymore, so don't hesitate to let me know if I've completely missed the mark.

Being human is hard.  
  
James stares at the ice cream flavors behind the display window. There are so many of them. So _many._ Chocolate, vanilla, mint, fruit...most of them he can’t even recognize. How the hell is he supposed to pick one?  
  
“What do you think?”  
  
He turns. Steve drapes an arm over his shoulders and smiles at the flavors. “Which one do you want?”  
  
James inhales sharply, his breath sticking in his throat.  
  
“I don’t—I don’t know,” he says helplessly.  
  
“Well, um,” Steve says, after a pause, “do you like chocolate or vanilla?”  
  
And it’s the stupidest thing to lose his mind over, but his breathing’s becoming quick and shallow. _Does_ he like chocolate? _Does_ he like vanilla? He doesn’t know, he _just doesn’t know_ —  
  
Steve squeezes his shoulder. Gently. Reassuringly. “We’ll try chocolate this time, okay?”  
  
He breathes out, slowly. “Okay.”  
  
Chocolate ice cream, as it turns out, tastes pretty good.  
  
*  
  
“What’s your favorite color?” Steve asks him.  
  
He thinks hard about that. He looks at the blue of the sky, the white of the clouds, the gray of the sidewalk, the yellows and greens and reds and purples of the clothes of passersby.  
  
“I don’t know,” he admits.  
  
Steve only nods. His fingers tighten around James’s metal ones.  
  
*  
  
Steve’s eyes open, and when he sees James watching him, an incredulous grin spreads across his face. “What?” he asks.  
  
James blinks. “Huh?”  
  
“You were smiling.”  
  
“I was?”  
  
Steve’s grin widens, and James feels the corners of his mouth tug upwards in response.  
  
“I like it when you smile,” Steve says.  
  
He’s starting to smile more often, he thinks. He supposes that must be a good thing.  
  
*  
  
The first time James laughs is unexpected. Steve and Sharon are arguing about (of all things) opening a bottle of champagne, while Fury rolls his eye at the two of them. Sharon is insisting they should wait, Steve won’t hear it, and when he pulls the cork out, it flies twenty feet in the air as a geyser of champagne explodes outward and drenches them both.  
  
A sharp, almost barking-like sound bursts from his lungs and fills the air. Steve, Sharon, and Fury all turn to stare wide-eyed at him, and he claps his hand over his mouth, stifling the noise.  
  
“Sorry,” he says, baffled at himself, “I don’t know what—”  
  
But Steve is crossing around the table and he kisses him full on the mouth as though a holiday has come early. After a long minute, Sharon clears her throat loudly and obviously, and Steve pulls away, his eyes dancing.  
  
“What was that for?” James asks, with a bewildered smile.  
  
“You laughed,” Steve answers. “It’s the first time I’ve heard you laugh.”  
  
“Oh.” James blinks. “Yeah...I guess so.”  
  
“Are you two lovebirds done yet?” Fury growls.  
  
Steve laughs, and James thinks it sounds so much nicer than his own. But his laughter had made Steve happy, so it can’t have been all that bad.  
  
*  
  
“James,” Steve says, and he turns to him like a sunflower trying to face the bright, warm sun.  
  
“James,” Steve says, and it sounds like a song when he says it, the way his voice dips and folds around the name.  
  
“James,” Steve says, and he wants to hear him say it over and over and over again.  
  
*  
  
James still doesn’t really like being around people. He remembers a time when he used to—when people called him “Bucky,” when he was a different person, cocky and charismatic and full of life. It is a memory that doesn’t belong to him, he knows, but he feels the imprint of it, the shadow of it, and it has become a part of him like a graft that has grown into his skin.  
  
He doesn’t like being around people because he also feels the shadow of the entity once known as the Winter Soldier—the assassin, the weapon who could not look at human beings without calculating the most efficient way to dismantle and kill them. He tries, but he thinks there is something missing from him the same way his left arm is missing—a certain spark that knows how to react, what to say when he talks to people.  
  
Steve remains unconcerned.  
  
“You’re fine,” he says. “There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re completely, absolutely fine.”  
  
So he swallows his misgivings and shows up when SHIELD gets a new hire.  
  
“Sam Wilson,” the man says, offering a hand. He takes it with his right hand, giving it a shake.  
  
“I’m James,” he says carefully. He is always careful with his name, careful with the sound of it, because it has been given to him as a gift and it is his most treasured possession.  
  
He notes Sam Wilson’s unguarded stance, his unprotected neck and head, the half a dozen ways he could be killed in seconds. He buries this information deep in a corner of his mind.  
  
“They told me about you,” Sam says, giving him a toothy grin. “Said you used to be some kind of super-assassin.”  
  
“Something like that.”  
  
“What about now?”  
  
James thinks about that, turns the question over in his mind. He doesn’t really have an answer to give.  
  
“I’m not sure.”  
  
He expects surprise, or disbelief, or confusion, but instead Sam only nods and claps him on the shoulder. “That’s cool. Hey, put in a good word for me with Captain Rogers? And Agent Carter?”  
  
He thinks he likes Sam Wilson.  
  
*  
  
“What’s your favorite color?” Steve asks him, with infinite patience.  
  
He ponders.  
  
“Maybe...yellow?”  
  
Steve nods, and smiles.  
  
*  
  
Being human isn’t easy.  
  
He still has nights when he wakes up with the pain of phantom electricity tearing his skull apart, or the screams of the dead echoing in his ears, and Steve has to wrap his arms around his cold, shuddering body. “You’re with me,” he’ll murmur soothingly, lips brushing against James’s ear. “You’re okay. You’re _safe._ ”  
  
Other nights—they’re rarer, now, but they still happen—Steve wakes up with gasping breaths and needs to touch James’s face, needs to listen to his heartbeat, needs to convince himself that James is really here, alive.  
  
“Don’t leave me,” he mumbles.  
  
“Never,” James promises.  
  
*  
  
James is supposed to go to a store to buy wine—Sharon is dating the new guy, Sam Wilson, and Steve always seizes the slightest occasion to celebrate—but on the way there, he hears sounds of a struggle in a back alley. He finds a handful of men beating up a child.  
  
“Thought you could steal from us? Huh? You have no idea what you’re messin’ with, kid!” one of the men spits.  
  
Hot anger flares to life in James’s chest. He steps forward and yells, “Hey!”  
  
Their heads snap to him. Two of them take guns out from their vests and click off the safety latch.  
  
“Start walking,” one of the men says.  
  
He looks at the guns, and the men, and he suddenly has the bizarre urge to laugh. “I don’t think so,” he says, taking a step forward.  
  
Their fingers twitch. He _moves._ The guns fire but he’s right next to the men, crushing their weapons with his metal hand, breaking bones and throwing them into the brick alley walls—  
  
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the child’s scrambled away but one last thug is talking on his cellphone. “Came outta nowhere like a freakin’ _demon,_ snapped a gun with one hand, I think this might be the guy you’re lookin’ for—wait—oh god—”  
  
James swats the phone out of his hand and grabs the man by the collar of his jacket. “Who the hell were you talking to?” he demands.  
  
Something hits him in the back—burning, blinding pain—  
  
—and suddenly—  
  
—He’s slumped against a wall, breathing hard. Half a dozen bodies lie in the unfamiliar room— _where the hell is he, how did he even get here?_ —and there’s blood splattered on the ground and the walls, and blood staining his hands— _what the_ hell—?  
  
A shrill, electronic ringing noise makes him start. It’s coming from the far side of the room. He staggers over there, finds his jacket on a table, and fishes his phone out from the pocket. The caller ID reads Steve. He fumbles with blood-slicked fingers, trying to answer the call.  
  
“James?” Steve’s voice is breathless. “I’ve been trying to call you for the past hour! Where are you?”  
  
He looks back at the bloody corpses. The ground sways beneath his feet.  
  
“James?” Steve’s voice sharpens with concern. “What happened?”  
  
“I—” He falls to his knees and hits the ground hard. His voice is barely above a whisper. “I messed up...I messed up bad...please... _help me_ …”  
  
And then—  
  
—Water. Pouring down, all around him. He’s—he’s _home_ , he realizes, but how did he get here, how did he—  
  
He stumbles against the glass door, yanking it open.  
  
“James!”  
  
Steve’s here, Steve’s _here_ , his face crinkled with anxiety. He grabs Steve’s shoulder.  
  
“What happened?” he rasps. “What—how did I—”  
  
“Whoa, easy there.” Steve turns off the shower, grabs a towel, and wraps it around him. “You’re safe, all right? You’re home.”  
  
“But I don’t remember,” he whispers. “I don’t remember what happened, or how I got here, or…or…oh, god…”  
  
“Hey.” Steve’s arms circle him. “It’s gonna be okay, all right? As far as we can tell, some criminal group somehow heard about you and, um, wanted you to…‘work’ for them. Whatever they tried to do to you—the doctors said it made you enter something like a fugue state. That the situation must’ve been so bad, you kind of…became someone else for a little bit.”  
  
James shivers. “You mean…the Winter Soldier?”  
  
Steve stills, and doesn’t answer.  
  
He grabs Steve’s shirt. “What did I do? What did I—”  
  
“Nothing!” Steve says, hastily. “I mean—in the hospital, you were fine. You were just confused and you didn’t want the doctors near you. You were _scared_ , that’s all.”  
  
He breathes out, his hands trembling.  
  
“I don’t—why is this happening to me? I don’t want to forget, I don’t want to be the Winter Soldier again, I—”  
  
“It’s okay,” Steve says softly. “The doctors said you were triggered, and—it happens. They were bad people.”  
  
“But I didn’t mean to...I don’t want to be the Winter Soldier,” he repeats, mumbling.  
  
Steve’s arms tighten around him. “I know,” he murmurs. “I know.”  
  
*  
  
“I don’t deserve this,” he says.  
  
“I’m too broken,” he says.  
  
“You should leave me,” he says.  
  
“I just want you to be happy,” he says, forcing the words past the lump in his throat.  
  
Steve only looks at him with a serious expression and strokes his hair.  
  
“Are _you_ happy?” he asks.  
  
His eyes burn.  
  
“Yes,” he chokes, almost sobs, “yes, I’d be happy anywhere with you.”  
  
Steve smiles and gently kisses him on the cheek.  
  
“If you’re happy, then I’m happy,” he tells him. “You’re not broken. And I’m not leaving you.”  
  
*  
  
Some nights, he wakes up with his memories all scrambled. He is the Winter Soldier—he is not the Winter Soldier—he is Bucky Barnes—he is not Bucky Barnes—  
  
“What’s my name?” he whispers harshly, brokenly, desperately searching for an answer in those blue eyes beside him. “ _What’s my name?!_ ”  
  
“James,” Steve whispers back. “Your name is James.”  
  
Steve holds him until his breathing evens out. Until memories come trickling back to him like rain, and he remembers who is—someone still learning (relearning?) how to smile, how to laugh, how to cry. He is bits and pieces, the shell of another life, the empty casings of a weapon, taking it all and melting it down and trying to forge something new.  
  
He leans his forehead against Steve’s chest. “I’m sorry…”  
  


“Don’t be.” Steve kisses him slow and deep. “I love you,” he breathes.

James inhales and closes his eyes. His heart beats like a firework, sings like a bird at the sound of those words.  
  
“I love you, too.”  
  
Being human is hard.  
  
But it’s worth it.  
  
 _fin._


End file.
